SCIENCE IN SOCIETY

Pragmatically most policy makers, scientists, engineeres and companies recognise that many emerging technologies raise ethical and social issues which mean that they may not necessarily be warmly greeted mean by the wider public. But there is a widespread acknowledgement that these ethical and social issues are matters over which we need to discuss together as a society. Part of the business of exploring the boundaries of science and developing new technologies on behalf of our society means that we need to engage with ordinary people not merely like buyers in a market, but as citizens who wish to engage with the process of development.

Edinethics (and before that the Church of Scotland SRT Project) has been working closely with the New Economics Foundation (nef) for nearly 10 years, to help develop tools for engaging citizens to be aware and to think about new technologies which could impact their lives, about which they might want a say.  We will be developing some pages to tell you some of the things we have done, but here as a starter are two recent tools which Edinethics has been developing with nef.

Democs Card Games

The first is a card game called Democs (DEliberative Meetings Of CitizenS. Edinethics director Donald Bruce was one of the original consultants on the project which created the Democs concept and its first game on stem cells in 2001.  Democs games have since been made for a wide variety of issues from cloning to climate change. Donald Bruce has written games on

• Stem Cells and Cloning : the original Democs game, now in its 4th revision
• GM food : for the 2003 UK 'GM Nation?' debate
• Nanobiotechnologies : in the EC FP6 NanoBio-Raise programme
• Synthetic biology : created for for ESRC Genomics Forum and the Scottish Government
• A game on human enhancement is in preparation in the EC FP7 project ETHENTECH.

To find out more about the idea of Democs games and how they work, click on What is Democs?

• Download the Democs Card Game on Synthetic Biology (pdf files) from the Genomics Forum website.
• Dowload other games on the New Economics Foundation website

Play the Game!

We are looking for groups of 6-8 people in Scotland to play Democs games on synthetic biology or onb human enhancement. Absolutely no expert knowledge is required - indeed that's the whole point! Would you be interested? If so email us at Edinethics.

OPEN UP!

Open Up! is the name of a new way of exploring issues in the form of a 'Argument Map'. It's a sheet of A3 paper folded up. As you open it up, you learn about the issue, read some case study stories about it. Finally you reach a map in which you trace your way through sets of questions which have been written to help you think about the implications of the technology. And you can write your comments, and if you want, vote on a sliding scale : Yes- Maybe-Not sure-Don't think so-No.

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